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Announced November 30th, 2001
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
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With
the compassionate realism of Dickens and a narrative sweep
worthy of Balzac, this internationally acclaimed novel draws
an unforgettable portrait of the cruelty and corruption,
kindness and heroism of India. Set in 1975, A Fine Balance
follows the destinies of four strangers who are forced to
share a cramped apartment in an unnamed city by the sea.
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| Announced September
2001
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
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The
Lambert family isn't doing well. Alfred has Parkinson's
disease and a bad case of alienation from his wife, Enid.
Gary is a banker with a heart of steel. Chip is in New
York City trying to find himself, but losing the battle.
And Denise is stuck in a destructive affair with a married
man. Enid is hoping to get away with Alfred for a long-postponed
cruise, but as things start to spiral out of control the
Lamberts must examine where they are, where they have
been, and what exactly it means to be a family in the
latter half of the 20th century. |
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reviews
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excerpt |
| Announced June
2001
Cane River by Lalita Tademy |
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A
unique accomplishment, this is history never before told,
an epic novel of four generations of African-American
women, a work based on one family's actual meticulously
researched past and a book with enormous implications
for us all. |
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reviews
read
excerpt |
| Announced May
2001
Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir
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The
adopted daughter of the king of Morocco, whose father
was arrested and executed for a 1972 attempt to assassinate
the king, tells the story of how she, her mother, and
her five siblings endured years of imprisonment in a
desert penal colony... |
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reviews |
| Announced March
2001
Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio |
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Icy
Sparks
is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl
growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the
1950s. Gwyn Hyman Rubios beautifully written first novel
revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in
the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or
Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten,
Icy, a bright, curious child... |
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reviews
read
excerpt |
| Announced January
2001
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
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In
upstate New York, the Mulvaneys are a wealthy and magnetic
family attractive, charismatic, promising. But after 25
years, the family begins to slide, then fragment, then shatter,
and soon there is nothing left of the dynasty. Judd, the
youngest of the clan, begins to search for the reasons behind
the downfall, and as he uncovers family secrets, he begins
to bring the Mulvaneys slowly back together in a spirit
of healing and compassion |
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more |
| Announced November
2000
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
III |
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An
American tragedy, The House of Sand and Fog turns
both the traditional immigrant success story and a modern
love story upside down with a heartrending outcome in a
master stroke of American realism and Shakespearean consequence.
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reviews
read
excerpt |
| Announced September
2000
Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz |
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This is a haunting novel about the ties
that bind families together and the insidious secrets that can rend
them apart. Love, loss, guilt, lies are the narrative strands that
run throughout this deftly woven tale of three women and a shocking
turn of events that changes their lives forever. Hauntingly narrated
and grippingly paced, Drowning Ruth is a remarkably accomplished
and mesmerizing debut. Oprah says, "This book kept me up past
1A.M.!!" |
| Announced August
2000
Open House by Elizabeth Berg |
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"Berg
once again refreshes a well-worn plot with knowing domestic
detail, an understanding of familiar sometimes conflicting
female emotions and an infectious sentimental optimism.
Neither deep nor complex, Sam charms the reader as she learns
to stand up for herself. It is hard not to root for her."
Publishers Weekly
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reviews
read
an excerpt |
| Announced June
2000
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
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In
this risky but resoundingly successful novel, Kingsolver
leaves the Southwest, the setting of most of her work and
follows an evangelical Baptist minister's family to the
Congo in the late 1950s, entwining their fate with that
of the country during three turbulent decades.
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more |
| Announced May
2000
While I Was Gone by Sue Miller |
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Jo
Becker, a happily married middle-aged woman, finds virtually
every aspect of her stability threatened when an old friend
named Eli Mayhew comes to town. Eli reminds Jo of her life
as a counterculture free spirit in the '60s, when the murder
of her best friend still unsolved shattered Jo's life.
Now, thirty years later, Jo finds that old issues remain,
and she must make decisions that will affect not only herself
but her family. |
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reviews
read
excerpt |
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"From
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison comes the story of a young
black girl who longs to be like the blond, blue-eyed children
that America loves-a novel 'so charged with pain and wonder
that it becomes poetry'" The New York Times
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| Announced March
2000
Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell |
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"A
strong, thoughtful first novel that hews to time-honored
fiction traditions, rooting a voyage of personal discovery
in beautifully rendered particulars of character and place."
Kirkus Reviews
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more |
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